


Unfinished Business

by jellybeanforest



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Child Abuse, Coparenting from Beyond the Grave, Death, Emotional Constipation, Forgiveness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy of Parent-Child Relationship, M/M, Parent Yondu Udonta, Redemption, Slow burn friendship, dadYondu, kragdu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-03 05:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12741717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Kraglin and Peter adjust to life after Yondu's funeral. Meanwhile, post-death, Yondu and Meredith Quill get along about as well as you would expect.





	1. Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The many ways Yondu Udonta expects to die, and the one unexpected way he does.

All his life, Yondu is on the verge of death.  

In his early years, Yondu expects to die skewered on the business end of a battle slave's spear. Fighting for his life to entertain a master he doesn't like nor respect, all it would take is a quicker, stronger, or hell, just-plain-luckier opponent. One wrong step, one miscalculation, one thrust to pierce him. Even if he didn't die immediately, wounds can fester and rot. Best he could hope for was a quick death in the ring. 

When Stakar frees him, he expects to die a Ravager. Go out in a blaze of glory, wild and free after a short life of whoring and stealing and doing whatever the fuck he wants. He never expects to live long enough to shame even the already-disreputable Ravager name. 

Later, he expects to die in exile, perhaps in battle or in a bar fight when his luck finally runs out. He doesn't know, doesn't really care. However it happens, he's certain his passing will go unacknowledged and unmourned by the other Ravager clans. There's a lesson here. Life is full of a surprises and a surprisingly high number of ways to fuck it all up. As long as he breathes, he supposes there's always a chance it can get worse.

However, of all the possibilities, he never considered he'd die like this. Selflessly and quietly in cold deep space, saving that brat. 

All the things he never told Quill, at least not explicitly. The idiot never understood subtlety. Sentiment is a tricky thing in his line of work, but it's now or never. He'll never live it down, but then again, he doesn't have long to live. "I'm sorry I didn't do none of it right... I'm damn lucky yer my boy." He says, brimming with pride and conviction.

Two men, one aero-rig. One will live. One will die. It's an easy choice, Yondu thinks as he fastens the mechanism on the younger man and activates it.

"What?" Peter whispers. He doesn't understand at first, but in the next minute, the horrible realization settles in, and he panics.

 _Quill's at it again. That defiant moron... always talking back,_ Yondu thinks. Peter is sputtering in disbelief, frantically trying to remove the aero-rig affixed to his jacket, trying to undo the one good thing Yondu has ever done in his life when he should just be listening. The boy never listens, but Yondu has his attention for the moment. Dyin' tends to do that. Only now, Yondu can't speak. His vocal cords are freezing in his throat, and there's not nearly enough air up here. The best he can do is grab his boy's face as if to say, "It's all right, son."

Yondu stares at Peter, wanting him to be the last thing he sees in this life. And as his vision fades, he supposes there are worse ways to go. 

A dad should never outlive his child.

* * *

Yondu wakes to the sound of horns. He sees his old crew, the ones who perished in his service and at the hands of mutineers. Tullk, Horuz, Oblo, among others. While he didn't expect to hear the horns of freedom, he did expect to see his crew, assuming they forgave him for being so weak, that is. The person who catches him completely by surprise is a stranger: a blonde Terran woman with Quill's eyes. Together, they all watch the kaleidoscope of colors alighting Yondu’s funeral, his men whooping and hollering. The 99 colors of the 99 Ravager clans paying respect to a fallen comrade. Redemption is the last thing he expects and the most beautiful thing Yondu has ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I conceived of this fic as a story about Yondu (as a straight man) and Meredith Quill (as a straight woman) who are both dead but slowly bond over a shared love of their adult child, Peter. They didn’t end up together (and still won’t, sorry to all those Merdu shippers), but I liked the idea of the central story being two people who develop an emotional bond/mutual respect for each other and could theoretically be attracted to each other, but they end up hanging out without hooking up. You know, like friends. Then Write_Like_An_American had to go and make me fall in love with the Kragdu pairing, and it became more of a Will-and-Grace type situation. Story is mostly done so it will update as I edit it.


	2. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin wants to punch Peter for being soft three whole days after the funeral, while he himself suffers from suspiciously-timed seasonal allergies. Meanwhile, Yondu has afterlife goals much to Mer's consternation.

The Guardians gather together at the Bridge to watch the Colors of Ogord burst over the trail of Yondu’s ashes. Kraglin alone stays in the makeshift mortuary watching the last of his body dissolve in bright blue engine flames. It had always been like that… him and Yondu, standing together until the end. He won’t abandon him now. Not again.

When the first ships arrive to give Yondu a proper Ravager funeral, he can’t believe his eyes. Kraglin had always been a pessimist – or a pragmatist, as he liked to think – and as such, he had never considered the possibility that the other clans would forgive their rogue faction. Proven wrong, his heart swells in surprise and pure happiness. He yells and beats his chest to the Ravager Flame in tribute to his Captain.

Yondu had been forgiven.

…But he was still dead. At the end of the day, the Pyrrhic victory tastes bittersweet in Kraglin’s mouth.

Stakar’s ship is the last to leave, lingering long after the last of Yondu’s glittery ashes have faded into the vacuum. He stays not only to give a final farewell to an old exiled friend, but to extend an offer to join his faction to Kraglin, the last of Yondu’s Ravagers (save Peter). Kraglin declines. It’s been too long, and it is much too soon to rejoin the clans that had shunned Yondu in life. He doesn’t have a plan for the future, but their forgiveness had come much too late for the one who needed it most, and Kraglin resents Stakar and the other Ravagers for letting Yondu die disgraced and friendless. (He doesn’t like to think how he had played a part in that hopeless state as well.) Kraglin is too much of a pragmatist to believe Yondu saw the display from beyond the grave.

* * *

_It’s been three whole days_ , Kraglin thinks while fiddling with Yondu’s repaired arrow. Pete weeps visibly. Kraglin wants to punch him. He wants to give him a shake and slap the tears out of his big watery eyes. Yondu is gone, but he wouldn’t appreciate this… this display of sentiment on his behalf. It’s unseemly, obscene, and downright unbecoming of a Ravager. If Pete wants to pay proper tribute to Yondu, then he needs to buck up and have a stiff upper lip. Like Kraglin. Kraglin accidentally nicks the tip of his finger on the arrow head, drawing dark blue blood. He stares at the inert weapon, remembering a time it glowed, danced, and absolutely sang with radiation and death to the tune of its master’s whistle.

_Shit._ Kraglin wipes his eyes. _Must be allergic to the twig’s pollen._ Probably. Most likely. Well, it’s not like he’s been exposed to nature enough to prove otherwise. Unbidden, more memories invade his consciousness. Glinting chipped teeth. The smell of leather mixed with sour body odor. That gravelly voice. The touch of blue scarred skin, pliant under his fingers…

He needs to get out of here.

“Hey Kraglin, how you holding up?” Pete is looking at him like he’s the only other person in the galaxy who understands his pain. It makes sense. They each spent 20-odd years or more with Yondu. They were both close to him, albeit in very different ways, and they are the last of Yondu’s clan. Still…

It’s disgusting. _Yondu died for this soft idiot?_ The way Pete’s staring at him makes him feel claustrophobic in his own skin. Kraglin wants to scream. He wants to hit Pete. Knock him to the ground and keep punching until his head caves in and his face is unrecognizable blood-wet pulp. He clenches his fist around the arrow’s sheath to keep his hands busy.

“Fine Pete, just fine.”

Pete had always been Yondu’s boy. While Kraglin had grown to like Pete well enough, he had never quite taken to him, not in the way Yondu had. Pete was a distraction, a liability, and Yondu’s weakness in a way Kraglin would never be. Although he didn’t like to admit it, a small, petty part of Kraglin felt that Pete was competition for the finite resource that was Yondu’s love and attention, and without trying, without even wanting it, the brat always won, time and again. As someone who grew up with so little, Kraglin held on to what was his and didn’t take kindly to usurpers. However, in the end it hadn’t mattered. Yondu always picked Pete first, had died choosing Pete, and had left Kraglin alone to deal with the aftermath.

So, Kraglin nurses his anger towards Pete, the other Ravager clans… any external source, really. It’s easier to face that than the other reason for his denial of Stakar’s offer: his own shame. Deep down, Kraglin just doesn’t believe a mutineer deserves to join another Ravager clan. He fucked up, and there simply hadn’t been enough time to hash it out with his Captain, to earn his forgiveness. If Yondu had lived, he could have given Kraglin a well-deserved beat down, shatter some bones, whistle for his arrow, ignore Kraglin for weeks… have rough angry makeup sex in a conveniently-located storage room. Now it’s too late. Yondu is gone forever, and that is that.

* * *

Meredith Quill watches the exchange from the sideline, unseen by the living participants of this tableau. A distinctive presence invades her right with a low whistle. The repaired arrow remains dull and unmoved in Kraglin’s hand.

Mer is surprised to see Yondu again. “I thought you’d be halfway to the pearly gates by now with that crew of your’s. Got some unfinished business holding you back?” Yondu grunts, neither confirming nor denying the charge. _Could it be?_

“You’re here to check in on Peter?”

Yondu startles then sneers, “Fuck no! That son of a bitch,” he’s pointing at the thin Mohawked man beside Peter, “started a stars-damned mutiny, and I’m waitin’ fer him to fuckin’ die so I can make ‘im pay.”

_Of course. Revenge would drive him._ Mer was Peter’s ghostly companion for the majority of his life, so she is familiar with the general personality and motivations of her son’s kidnapper-savior. Still…

“Who? Kraglin?” She is a bit surprised that _Kraglin_ would betray his Captain. From what she had seen through the years, he had been loyal to a fault, incapable of so much as disobeying Yondu’s orders. She wondered what had finally pushed him to it in the end, but she is too polite to really ask.

Yondu doesn’t want to admit how much Kraglin’s betrayal had hurt him. Sure, he expected mutiny out of the likes of Taserface and Half-nut. Hell, even Gef wasn’t that much of a surprise. They were all opportunistic fuckers. But he thought Kraglin was a little different. More loyal. They had a “thing” going, and while Yondu had been clear that their romps in the sack didn’t specifically mean anything more than a bit of fun… consistent fun… okay, about every couple days or so for the past 30 years, give or take… the point was he thought that maybe the sex was good enough to stop his First Mate from sticking a knife between his ribs at the first good opportunity. He’d been wrong. Sure, Kraglin came around eventually, but the emotional fallout of the loss of his arrow paled in comparison to that of the corresponding lapse in Kraglin’s loyalty. Not that Yondu would admit that. Anger is a more familiar (and less confusing) feeling for him than whatever that whole business had roused in him.

“When I git my hands on him, I’m goin’ t’knock all his teeth out fer starters. Maybe make myself a purty necklace out o’ ‘em.”


	3. Their son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu and Mer butt heads over parenting styles.

Meredith Quill always had big dreams for her son. She just knew one day, when he was done with whatever nebulous mission that had brought him to Earth in the first place, Peter’s daddy was going to come home to them, and he was going to show their son what it was like to be a spaceman, just like him. Peter was going to grow up to be somebody important, somebody special. Under his parents’ unwavering guiding hand, he would be good and kind and true. She had had faith in Ego and faith in the power of his love, both for her and for their son.

She had been so young and stupid back then.

She was stripped of her illusions of Ego soon after she was stripped of her mortal coil by the same man. Death brought perspective, after all.

“Hey, don’t worry about the boy none. He’ll be just fine,” Yondu tells her matter-of-factly. He says this looking at Quill, without so much as glancing at her. He never looks at her, but she supposes that’s just peachy.

His continued presence is not too surprising. Kraglin is free to come and go as he pleases in his own M-ship, but more often than not, he chooses to stick around the Guardians, who have taken the Quadrant as their base. Yondu supposes it’s because Kraglin spent most of his life as the man behind the leader, not the leader himself. Hell, he didn’t even claim the captaincy after Yondu’s death, choosing to declare _Quill_ captain. (Captain of what though, a ghost faction?) Kraglin spends most of his free time on the Quadrant with Rocket. They seem thick as thieves, tinkering with wires and motherboards, whispering late into the night. It makes sense. His other options are the bulky tattooed one who threatened him at their first meeting, a stars-damned daughter of Thanos, the baby tree (Kraglin was never one for babysitting, unless he was under explicit orders to do so), a mopey Quill, and a bug girl who’s droopier and even more sentimental than Quill. Besides, Rocket is the one most like Yondu, so perhaps Kraglin misses their old dynamic. The unbidden thought of Kraglin fucking an impossibly small Rocket makes Yondu squeamish. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly the same as him and Kraglin, but Yondu finds elsewhere to be when they are alone together. Just in case. He wants to enjoy it when he delivers Kraglin’s post-death beat-down. For that to happen, he needs to be able to look him in the eye.

Yondu ends up spending a lot of time with “Quill’s mother,” as he likes to think of her.

At first, Mer had been a bit apprehensive when he planted himself next to her, declaring he was in it for the long haul. He had been a crude, violent, largely-amoral psychopath in life, and though she had dealt with people who fit a couple of those descriptors (Exhibit A: Ego), she truly didn’t know what to expect from him. Sure, he couldn’t kill her anymore, but some fates are worse than death. (She tries not to think of howling, shrieking empty-eyed souls.) Leaving was never an option in her mind, but she nearly vibrated with nervous energy that first day, being hyperaware of Yondu’s every move and nearly jumping the one time he took a couple steps towards her and the door behind her when Kraglin had moved to the next room. If he noticed her reaction at all, he didn’t say anything, but he did learn to take alternate routes through walls like a proper ghost to avoid approaching her. As it turns out, he barely acknowledges Mer at all, much less speaks to her. This status quo didn’t last. Silence, especially worried silence during battles, is awkward. Yondu didn’t mind so much and would have vastly preferred they continue to ignore each other like respectable strangers, but Mer is a talker like her son. So, they engage in a little small talk here and there. She had attended his funeral; that was true, but she parted soon after thanking him for saving Peter. It wasn’t like they knew each other in life, nor did they have much in common besides Quill.

“Fine?! He’s fighting a giant Cthulhu monster… I mean, what in heaven’s name is that thing?... and he’s being thrown around like a ragdoll!”

“Kraxlor. They’re tough sonsovbitches, but Quill’ll pull through. No doubt about it.”

Peter is thrown headfirst into a wall. Mer visibly winces.

“At least he didn’t land on somethin’ vital.” Yondu quips. Is his brow a little more furrowed than usual?

“His head?!”

“Not like he uses it that much anyway, fuckin’ idiot.”

Mer shoots him a dirty look. _Not now._

* * *

“I told ya he’d be fine.” After the battle is over and the Guardians of the Galaxy are (predictably) victorious, Yondu appears unfazed. To the trained eye, he’s perhaps slightly more relaxed now than before, but Mer doesn’t know him well enough to spot the difference. “The boy can really take a beating.”

“You should know.” she says, with acid in her voice. The battle has her riled up, but the accusation has been a long time coming.

“What’s that suppose t’mean?” Yondu is genuinely offended. Admittedly, he could have been a little better, a little kinder, but he did die for the boy. What more did she want?

“You know what it means. He’s my son, Yondu. I check in on him from time to time. _I saw you_.” Mer stares unwaveringly into his eyes. Yondu looks away first, but the next second, he’s back in her face, angry and blustering, but underneath it all, buried deep, perhaps a little guilty. He’s used to people being scared when he’s like this, but Mer doesn’t cower. What’s he going to do? They’re both dead.

"He alive, ain’t he?" He tells her. “Look, I don’t know what it's like on _Terra_ ,” the way he says the name makes it sound like it’s the pansy-est place in the galaxy, “but in the rest of the universe, ya have to scrape and fight to git yer's. Would ya rather I'da coddled the brat, read him a bedtime story, fight his fights? Maybe wipe his ass for him while I'm at it? Or would ya rather he learn to survive?”

“He was just a child, and he lived in fear of you every day,” She counters.

“He didn’ have it that bad. At least he got a roof over his head and food in his belly. The rest of my crew knew better’n to mess with his scrawny-ass self.”

Mer looks incredulous, “You threatened to let them eat him!”

“That was a joke!”

“It wasn’t very funny!”

_Do all Terrans lack a sense of humor?_ Yondu wonders, _because that was some funny shit._ Aloud, he says, “I may not be his father, but I raised him best I could. He’s my boy, too, Woman. I may’ve got it more wrong than right, but at least he got a shot. That's more'n my parents ever gave me. It’s more’n yer precious Ego would have given him, too." It’s a low-blow, and Yondu knows it the minute he says it. Quill isn’t the only one who runs his mouth faster than his brain. No, he got that trait from his daddy.

Mer looks hurt, too angry and guilty to speak, and pushes past him, knocking against his shoulder when he refuses to make way for her. Yondu feels like an asshole, and for the first time in a long time, it bothers him.

* * *

Yondu is gone for a while after that. He even makes himself scarce when his future victim, Kraglin, is around. Mer wonders if she’ll ever see him again. Not that she misses the jerk, but sometimes his confidence in Peter’s abilities to skirt death can be comforting. Mer finds Yondu confusing. Before he died, she hated the blue bastard, more than Peter himself on his worst days. For Peter to stay with Yondu so long into adulthood, her son must have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or perhaps he thought it was the only way he’d be able to live. It’s hard to leave an outlaw’s life, after all, and Yondu was right that Peter was a survivor. It wasn’t the life she had wanted for him, the one she had dreamed about when she was living. Although that was ultimately Ego’s fault, Yondu was her son’s day-to-day tormentor, and it was easier to focus her hatred on him. After he died, especially considering the way he died… she didn’t know what to think. Can 26 years of physical and psychological abuse be forgiven with one final act of selflessness? She doubted it. But then, how does one parse one’s feelings towards such a man?

“Hey.”

She doesn’t notice when Yondu sidles up next to her while Peter is fighting a golden man named Adam. The Guardians seem to be having some trouble.

“Hello again.” She supposes there’s no reason to be rude.

“That one’s a Sovereign. Strong, too. Most are too prissy t’git their hands dirty. Must be a new model.” He’s still not looking at her, concentrating on the action in front of him.

“Hmmm…” Mer doesn’t really know how to respond to his sudden presence.

“Quill’ll git him in the end. So don’ fret about that.”

* * *

After the battle, they stand in silence.

“So, is that it then? We’re just going to pretend that it never happened? Sweep it under the rug and all that?” Mer finally asks.

“I don’ know whatchu want from me. A ‘pology? A sorry-I-wasn’-good-enough? Truth is, he was soft when I got him. He needed t’be tougher. Out here soft don’t git ya nowhere. Soft gits ya dead.” _Soft got me dead_ , he thinks to himself.

“You have no idea what it was like to see him go through all that from you. And now you’re here in front of me... and I truly don’t know how to feel or what to do with you. I wanted to protect him!”

“Woman, I was protectin’ him!” They glare at each other, each thinking the other’s parenting style could have easily gotten their son killed.

Yondu speaks first: “Yer a good Ma, you know what? Way better’n mine. Her and my daddy sold me to the Kree slavers when I was a bitty baby. Imagine that, huh? Didn’t give two shits about me.” Yondu scratches his chin. Mer looks surprised. “Fuck; I like to think I did mostly right by Quill, but I weren’t perfect. Made a lot of mistakes. Tried t’avoid the big ones.”

“That’s no excuse for beating him,” She finally says. Yondu isn’t surprised. He doesn’t expect anything less than condemnation from Quill’s mother. “But… I’m sorry about your parents. That sounds awful.” Mer is still angry with him, yet she’s horrified at his history. It doesn’t give him a free pass for child abuse, but despite her dislike of the man, she smiles at him then. Yondu is too emotionally-stunted to understand the feelings it gives him, though he knows pity when he sees it, and he doesn’t like it.

“Quill did turn out okay in the end. Four limbs, all original fingers and toes intact. Minimal brain damage…”

“A conscience.”  Mer adds; her expression darkening slightly.

“That one’s all you. Stars know I tried to beat that out o’ him.” Mer is frowning now, like she’s remembering what a bastard he is.

_That’s better,_ Yondu thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yondu beat and terrorized Peter for most of his life. He gets some leeway for sacrificing himself, but that just means Mer’s not going to strangle him with her headphone cord in the first ten minutes.


	4. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin is perfectly fine, just peachy. The Guardians disagree. Mer sees something she shouldn't have, and Yondu can't get any privacy, even in death.

It’s been four months, and Kraglin is okay. Really, he is. Four months is plenty of time to get over the loss of your home, friends, and captain/lover. Real Ravagers only need half that time. Tops. So, of course Kraglin is 100% fine. Never been better.

_Four months._ That had also been the amount of time he’d –

After Xander and preceding the mutiny, Kraglin had been so pissed at Yondu. Sure, Yondu was still his Captain. That wouldn’t change, but Kraglin made sure that was all he was to him during that time. Strategy meetings became just that. There were no tumbles into storage closets, nor had furtive fingers explored scarred, hardened flesh. Their relationship during those months was strictly, spitefully professional. At the time, Kraglin felt justified in scaling back their “thing.” Pete had stolen the biggest score they had ever and would ever run across right under his nose and then _gave_ it to Nova Prime. At least if he got something tangible out of it, maybe Kraglin could understand and later steal the reward, but Pete didn’t even have the Ravager sense to sell it to those prim bastards. Four billion units gone. And what did Yondu do? Did he condemn Pete? Call him every name in the book and some inventive new ones? Vow to chase him to the end of the universe and slowly extract those four billion units from his sorry hide before spacing him and the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy? Well yeah, but that was only in public, and there had been no follow through. In private, Yondu had just chuckled quietly, like he was _proud_ of the noble asshole, and let the matter drop. It enraged Kraglin. Yondu would have doggedly pursued and skewered any other person who had done what Pete did, _including Kraglin_ , but that little bastard had gotten off scot-free.

Now, Yondu was dead, and if Kraglin had been the more fanciful sort, he would wish to have that time back, to start over, to say goodbye proper. There hadn’t been enough time, but then again, Kraglin supposes there never would have been.

“What have you done?” Pete stares at the oversized fin implanted atop Kraglin’s head. The edges of his skin are still puffy and purpled where the implant meets flesh.

_Oh. Right._

“Nothin’.” _I don’t need to explain myself to you_ is what Kraglin wants to say. Perhaps he should have invested in a jaunty hat to hide the rather gaudy mechanism, something tall with pizzazz, but that would have only delayed the inevitable reveal.

“Nothing?” Pete tries and fails to process the rather permanent changes to Kraglin’s appearance. He knew that Yondu was Kraglin’s boss and possibly his best friend… well, as much as was possible for Ravagers, but this was a little far. _Why the fuck would he…_ Pete spies Yondu’s repaired arrow in the new holster at Kraglin’s hip. _Oh, the arrow._ Of course Kraglin wanted control over the powerful weapon that had elevated Yondu’s stature and made half a ship of Ravagers no match for the man. Ravagers weren’t much for physical appearance or personal safety (Did he even use a legitimate surgeon? Was he taking antibiotics to prevent infection?), but they did desire power. Kraglin was a Ravager first and foremost and as such would seize any opportunity to enhance his deadliness despite personal risk. Still, Peter thought it was a little unseemly to go to these lengths. It was like wearing a dead man’s coat shortly after his funeral, or maybe something more personal, like his dentures.

“I find it hard to believe that you have yet to notice, but an unscrupulous physician has cracked open your skull and installed a metal protrusion on your head without your knowledge,” Drax adds helpfully. “Though the device has added six inches to your height, we will track down this person to restore you to your former state if that is what you desire. Then we will dispatch them as clandestine brain surgeries executed without patient consent are unethical and criminal.”

“Buddy, he obviously did it to himself.” Rocket chimes in.

“How could he have performed such delicate surgery on himself without general anesthetic?” Drax asks with confusion. Addressing Kraglin: “Your pain tolerance is admirable, but your actions are foolhardy. 

“I think it looks nice!” Mantis affects a smile, but it comes across as a cringe. People like compliments, and Mantis wants their new friend to like her. She touches Peter’s shoulder and frowns. Loss, grief, anger, and its source is centered around the apparatus on their new friend’s head.

“I am Groot?” Groot inquires.

“Of course I knew he was going to use it when I gave it to him, Groot.” Rocket shrugs then stands with his hands on his hips.

“What?” Peter might be a little pissed. Friends don’t enable other friends’ poor choices.

“You think that arrow responds to any old fin? The fin is more than a piece of hardware. Someone had to program it to connect to the arrow after we burned the prototype with Blue. Seeing as I installed the old one and repaired the arrow, I’m familiar with the tech.” Rocket says it like it’s obvious, like Peter is especially slow. It did go a long way towards explaining those late nights between the two of them. Still, Pete can’t believe Rocket would do this… Okay, on second thought, Rocket would totally do something like this for the challenge alone, but still.

Rocket takes in Pete’s incredulous stare. “What? He asked me to, and you were the one who gave him the arrow. I don’t know what you expected to happen. ‘Sides, it’s his body, Quill. He should have a say in what cybernetic enhancements he wants to install, no matter how aesthetically off-putting and potentially fatal they are.” Bodily autonomy had always been a big deal for Rocket.

“I am Groot?”

“It means ugly and stupid,” Rocket clarifies. “Seriously, you need to learn better vocabulizing.”

“It’s getting late, and I think we can all do with some rest.” Gamora says sensibly.

Later that night, Peter is still mulling over that fin. He can’t sleep and sits in the Captain’s chair on the Bridge, watching the stars. The chair is uncomfortably lumpy, formed over the years to fit a backside that is not his own.

The fin just looks so wrong on top of Kraglin’s head, and it creates an uncomfortable knot in Peter’s gut that he hopes is indigestion from Drax’s questionable cooking. It’s a bit silly, really. Kraglin looks nothing like Yondu. He’s beige, tall, bony, whereas Yondu had been blue, shorter, and stocky with a bit of a middle-age gut from binge drinking or perhaps eating a few too many Beasties. Even in profile, Kraglin’s nose is bigger while his chin is rather weak. However, with that bright red fin alighting his crown, in silhouette Peter can almost imagine…

_Icicles growing across a tall red fin. Red eyes turning milky and crusting over with layers of icy plaques. Blue skin rapidly turning frosty black._

“Peter? Are you okay?” Of course Gamora is up. She’s usually up at this hour.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re still thinking about it.” It’s not a question.

“It’s just… the fin was Yondu’s thing, and Kraglin, he… Well, Yondu hasn’t been gone that long, and Kraglin is already trying on his boots for size. I get that he’s a Ravager, and waste not, want not, but it just seems a little in poor taste.” Peter slumps forward in his chair. “I mean, they were best friends, and Kraglin seemed a little down for a couple days before going back to normal. He’s just gotten over it so fast. I know that’s the Ravager way, but” he waves his hand around as if trying to conjure the right words. “Well, I don’t know what I expected.”

Gamora is silent at first. “In my old clan, when a warrior falls in battle, there are no tears. His possessions are divided amongst his closest warrior brothers and are used almost immediately. This doesn’t mean they do not grieve for their fallen comrade, but they use the things he used in life as a way to remember him and keep him alive in a way.”

“I get that some people just grieve differently.” _But does he have to cut such a familiar figure while doing it?_

* * *

Kraglin sits, alone and dejected, on the floor just inside the closed door of his room in the Quadrant. He closes his eyes and raises his head to the ceiling to take in a deep, shaky breath.

_Clank!_ The sound of metal fin against metal door reverberates deep in Kraglin’s skull.

_Ouch_. Kraglin grimaces and rubs the base of his implant against his smarting flesh. Maybe once it completely heals up, it will be less sensitive. He will also have to get used to the new height, or maybe later he’ll install a shorter one like – 

His seasonal allergies are acting up again. Maybe he should see a doctor about that if he’s going to stay around Groot, he thinks as he rubs his watering eyes. _Yep, just allergies._

_He’s really done it this time, the damned fool._ Yondu thinks.

Yondu half-expected this kind of display from Quill. Well, okay, maybe not exactly anything this… permanent, but it was never supposed to be this hard for Kraglin. Kraglin is a proper Ravager: scrappy, practical, cunning, but most of all, emotionally removed. Besides, he and Kraglin weren’t...

Only they were. Sort of.

Yondu can’t touch him, can’t tell him to wipe that sad look off his face because _he’s right here, dammit_. Kraglin can’t see him, but then again… no one else can either. Yondu crouches down to Kraglin’s level and tries to carefully angle his arms so they look flush against Kraglin’s upper body without passing through. He leans his head against where he supposes Kraglin’s forehead is and closes his eyes. He tries to pretend he can feel Kraglin’s skin as he breathes in the memories of his warm musky scent. He makes small circles with his hands against Kraglin’s back in what he supposes would be a comforting motion if they had been on the same physical plane of existence.

The thing about ghosts is that they move soundlessly across rooms and through objects. Yondu senses her too late as Mer phases into the room. She freezes at the scene.

Oh.

_Ohhhhhhh._

Yondu pulls back like Kraglin’s skin scalds him, falling backwards onto the floor, the moment lost.

“Whatchu lookin’ at, woman?” He scowls at her like a snapping rabid dog, ugly and emotionally naked, as he pushes himself into a crouching position then up.

“You were… close? In life?” Mer isn’t sure if there is a taboo against homosexuality in space or if that is just an Earth hang-up. However, from his downright vicious expression and by the way Yondu backed away from Kraglin like he was a leper, she assumes the former. At any rate, she knows it’s rude to pry into another’s personal life and is sorry to have even asked, but surprise had formed the question before she could reel it back in.

Perhaps revenge isn’t the only thing keeping Yondu from moving on.

She’s giving him a soft slightly-sheepish expression now. Yondu just glares at her, daring her to say another word, to accuse and judge him. When she doesn’t, he shifts uncomfortably on his feet and scowls.

“Tch. When he dies, I’m goin’ to rip that fuckin’ thing from his head and skin ‘im with the dull side.” But the threat falls flat. There is no conviction in his tone.


	5. Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mer and Yondu have many regrets, but they share the same non-regret.

As she lay dying in her hospital bed, Meredith Quill’s only regrets are not things she has done, but what she has not been able to do. She regrets that she never told her son about his father until everyone assumed the truth was just a symptom of her illness. She regrets not asking Ego to stay on Earth. But mostly, she regrets that she will not be there to watch her son grow up.

Mer wakes outside her body to the buzzing of the flatlined monitor. Her father holds her mother holds her limp hand, the one Peter refused to touch in her last moments. Everyone is crying. Mer’s heart aches. She wants to tell them that she is okay. She is not in pain anymore. Everything will be okay, and they will see each other again. However, one person is missing.

Peter.

Mer floats up, phasing through the ceiling trying to find him, and spots her son collapsed in the field outside seconds before he is sucked up in a tractor beam. She follows him on-board to find a group of unwashed humanoid aliens in red leathers surrounding him. Sitting back on his rear while looking up, Peter is scared, more so than he’s been his entire life, and flinches as the blue one approaches, squats down, and attaches a mechanism behind his ear.

“Understand me now, boy?”

Peter stares, dumbfounded, at the strange man. He finds his legs the same time he finds his voice. Scrambling back, he queries, “Who… What…”

“Name’s Yondu, Captain Yondu Udonta. And this is my ship, the Eclector.” Yondu spreads his arms and turns with a flourish and a snaggle-toothed grin, like a pauper king showing off his lands.

When that fails to garner any response besides more quivering, Yondu continues, “We was just passing by and thought we’d pick up a snack, ‘ey boys.” The assembled crew raucously laughs their agreement, showing sharp teeth in shades of yellow and silver through gap-toothed grins. Turning back to Peter: “Don’t worry none about the crew. They just ain’t never tasted Terran before is all.” Peter is on the verge of pissing himself.

“I don’t know, Cap’n. This one’s a little skinny. Might not make good eating,” says the thin human-looking one as he smirks at his Captain’s side.

“You might be right, Kraglin. Short, too. He might be able to git into all sorts of places without anyone bein’ the wiser.” As if he’s doing Peter a big favor, he tells him, “Son, we might just have a job for ya.” To Kraglin: “’Sides, we can always eat him later when he stops being useful… or between supply runs.”

 

* * *

 

Mer sticks by Peter’s side for weeks. She doesn’t want him to die, can’t bear to see him butchered and boiled into stew to feed his ravenous Ravager captors, but she doesn’t want him to wake on the other side, alone and scared. She wishes she could hold him, tell him everything will be all right, but then again, she was never very good at lying. She prays for rescue from the only source it’s likely to come from: Ego.

“Give it back!” Peter screeches at a large muscular Reptilian Ravager who has swiped his Walkman and is presently testing the springiness of the soft foam ears of the headphones with his sharp claws. “You’re breaking it!”

Peter lunges recklessly at his scaly tormentor, arms swinging, like he has no common sense and even less sense of self-preservation. The lizard man grabs Peter’s forehead in one hand, holding him back at arms-length while Peter futilely punches air and the man’s meaty outstretched forearm, screaming newly-learned obscenities. The man laughs with a deep raspy sound. He could do this all night. Suddenly, Peter appears to deflate. He stops struggling and leans back a bit. Satisfied the kid has given up, the larger man let’s go of his forehead and starts to withdraw his arm. His mistake. Peter bites the retreating hand. Hard. Lizard man drops the Walkman and roughly grabs the back of Peter’s neck until he lets go.

“You shouldn’ta done that, boy. ‘Less ya want me t’bite ya back.” He snarls at the small Terran, barring his large crocodile teeth. Mer screams and attempts to grab her son back from danger, but as a ghost, her arms can’t find purchase, running right through his slight body.

A whistle sounds, and the Lizard man freezes, a glowing arrow hovers inches from his left eye. It follows him at eye level as he slowly straightens up to full height and puts Peter down, still holding on by the scruff.

“What the fuck is goin’ on here, Gyl?” Yondu is not amused. Kid couldn’t last two weeks without causing trouble.

“The lil’ cocksucker bit me, Cap’n.”

“Well, he stole from me!” Peter protests.

“Shut it, boy.” To Gyl: “Ya sayin’ this baby Terran” (Peter squawks “Not a baby!” in protest but is ignored) “attacked ya and you were goin’ to do what? Eat ‘im?” He spares a glance at the boy who’s looking up at him with hopeful eyes. “…without the rest of us?” Peter flinches. “Boy’s not on the menu without my say-so, and I didn’ say-so. Got it?” The arrow punctuates the last two words with two slight jabs forward. “Now get the fuck out. I’ll deal with the kid.”

When Gyl does as he is told, Yondu whistles his arrow back to its holster, steps forward, and smacks Peter on the back of the head. “The fuck were ya thinkin’, boy. What if his blood had been poisonous to Terrans? Or it could’a been acid and you would’a lost all yer teeth and yer bottom jaw. That whatchu want? Think before ya act.” Peter rubs the back of his smarting head then reaches down for the discarded Walkman. Yondu gets to it first, turning it over in his hands. “Tha’s what this is about?”

“That’s mine!” Peter reaches for the device and gets as far as touching Yondu’s wrist before he’s kicked hard into a nearby wall. Peter crumples inward on the floor, hissing in pain and making a valiant effort not to cry. If Yondu is surprised at his reflexive action, he doesn’t show it. He approaches Peter, who rears back as if Yondu is going to strike him again. Yondu’s mouth thins.

“Here.” He tosses Peter the Walkman. “Ain’t nobody goin’ to take it no more. Now stop bitchin’ and causin’ trouble, or the rest of us’ll be havin’ Terran stew.”

It’s an old threat, repeated many times before and will be repeated many times after. Shortly after this incident, Yondu either takes a personal hands-on interest in teaching Peter to fight, or he decides to “tenderize the meat” as he claims. She could be wrong, but Mer is reasonably certain Yondu doesn’t play with his food, at least not for this long, and that the daily threats of dismemberment and cannibalism are not going to come to fruition any time soon. Mer sets out to find her former lover.

Ego had once pointed out his planet’s star long ago, showed her his world on a star map using Terran constellations to triangulate his world. Now that she can travel through the vacuum of space, nothing stops her from visiting her former lover, Peter’s father. He will retrieve Peter, raise him, love him. Only then will she be able to rest in peace knowing their son is in good hands.

 

* * *

 

In the catacombs of the planet known as Ego, the bones of his numerous children are small, shiny and white, stripped of any flesh and discarded. They are piled haphazardly one on top of the other, bodies tumbling down and scattered carelessly across the cavern, evidence of a large-scale genocide carried out one unfortunate child at a time. Ego had shucked out their souls like corn and burned their bodies in clean bluish energy before finally chucking the husk. He threw all of them away, not caring about any of them. Thousands of empty eyes stare back at her, gaping in sorrow and accusation. Mer had spent 9 years, almost a third of her life, loving a monster who would kill and discard their son if given the chance.

This is Peter’s fate. Ego will be his end.

Until one blue bastard flips destiny the bird.

 

* * *

 

**26ish Years Later**

“Yondu, can I ask you a personal question?” Mer probes. The Guardians are cruising in the Milano between missions. After a pause, he gives her a grunt she takes as affirmation. She can ask, but it doesn’t mean he’ll answer if he doesn’t like the question.

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Yer goin’ to have to be a bit more specific, Woman.” Yondu has a lot of regrets, if he looks back. Luckily, he’s a Ravager, and Ravagers aren’t known for things like reflection and introspection.

“Peter.” She leaves it open-ended. She wants to know if he regrets abducting him, keeping him, terrorizing him, raising him… dying for him. Does he regret _him_? She has to know.

Yondu watches Quill squabble with Rocket. In quiet moments, when he’s inclined to think about it… He regrets the first time he spoke a Kree word after being punished for speaking his native tongue. He regrets being unable to track down and kill the first slave trader that bought him, not to mention his parents for selling him. He regrets allowing Taserface and all those mutinous fuckers onto the Eclector. He regrets meeting Ego, and selling those kids to their death. He regrets letting down Stakar, the man who freed him, and never being able to reconcile with him in life. He regrets not telling Kraglin… Well, he’s not too sure what, but he always thought there would be more time. An ocean of regret would threaten to swallow him whole if he wasn’t such a hardened asshole himself.

Rocket is scrambling around Quill’s back and shoulders, using his artillery belt to put him in a chokehold. Yondu shakes his head, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his closed eyes. Hasn’t he taught Quill anything? If he’d been more like Yondu, the raccoon’s pelt would be adorning the space behind his dash. Quill has always been too lax, too sentimental. Captains can’t afford disrespect from their crew. The idiot somehow failed to learn that lesson, Yondu thinks, conveniently forgetting that he had been relatively lenient with the boy by not murdering him, _especially_ during his teen years. To think if he never accepted Ego’s offer, if he never ferried any of those kids, if he never met Quill, then he would likely still be alive with a seat at the table among the Ravager clans. He would never have had to deal with a Terran terror on his ship and certainly never would have died for him. And yet... He remembers Quill’s firsts: the first time he was able to lift a practice trinket from Yondu’s pocket without him noticing, the first time he was able to shoot a target with a plasma gun, the first time he executed an aerobatic maneuver in his M-ship to avoid Nova Corp. He also remembers the lasts: the last time they fought, the last time they shared a drink on some off-world satellite, the last time he saw Quill and knew it would be for the last time ever.

“No.”

Quill might be an idiot. He might be a piss-poor failure of a Ravager, and he’s definitely too weak and sentimental for his own good, but Yondu is proud of him.

“Yeah, me neither.” Mer responds.


	6. Call Me Mer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mer is persistent. Yondu is an a-hole, but he's not 100% dick.

_It’s surprising how long you can talk to a person without using their name,_ Mer realizes one day while sitting in a field. Yondu is reclining on his back, arm tucked behind his head. She always assumed she and Yondu are on a first name basis by now, but it strikes her that he never says her name. She’s “Woman” or “Hey you” if he even addresses her at all. She could maybe test it out a bit. See what lengths he would go to avoid acknowledging her as a person…

“Hey Yondu, how come you never say my name? Did you forget it, old man Udonta?”

…Or she could just be direct and snarky. He would appreciate the lack of games.

Yondu grunts. Mer is still looking at him like she expects an answer. Damn, that usually works.

“I know yer name, _Woman_.” He emphasizes the last word. No one tells Yondu Udonta what to do.

Undeterred, she sticks out her right hand as if offering him a handshake. He glares at it, unmoving. She continues: “Hello, my name is Meredith Quill. Parents called me Merry, but most people call me Mer. I’m Peter’s mom.” He’s not paying attention to her, deliberately looking ahead of him instead of at her. “… also known as mother of Starlord, Guardian of the Galaxy,” she finishes.

“Tch.” Ah, a response. “Quill’s been tryin’ to git folks to call ‘im that fer damn-near 25 years. Tryin’ to git that registered as his alias on all the wanted lists. Nobody calls ‘im that. I mean, c’mon. Starlord? What’s he playin’ at? He ain’t no lord, ‘cept maybe of those other morons. It’s a stupid nickname anyway.”

“Hey! I gave him that nickname…”

Whoops. Yondu should have probably paid a little more attention when a young Peter had prattled on about his dead mother in his early days with the Ravagers. To Yondu, it had been white noise. Everyone has a past and a sob story. Poor little Petey lost his mother? Well, boohoo, Yondu had lost his entire species and home planet. Suck it up, kid. Now, shut up while I show you how to aim this blaster and remain not-dead.

Yondu looks Peter’s mother directly in the eye. “I stand by m’statement.”

Mer throws a small rock at his head, which Yondu easily catches and tosses behind him.

The whole affair devolves into a petty game between them. When you are stuck with a stubborn asshole for eternity (or until one of your loved ones dies), it’s inevitable.

 

* * *

 

“Call me Mer.”

“I don’ care what yer name is, Woman.”

“I don’t care what your name is, _Mer_.”

 

* * *

 

“Woman, yer son’s a right-damn moron.”

“How come he’s always my son when you’re disappointed in him? Besides, he’s just a little sensitive and… creative. And my name is not Woman. It’s Mer.”

“When he’s fightin’ and charmin’ or talkin’ his way outta shit, yeah, sure, I taught him that. But when he dances like _that_ , he’s yer son.”

 

* * *

 

Really, the joke had long worn thin, and it was barely funny the first time.

“Stop it, Woman!”

She’s singing it again. If he has to listen to “Lady in Red” one more time, he’s going to have a rage-induced aneurysm. Then he won’t be responsible for his actions.

She pauses. Blessed silence. Then: “My name is _Merrrrrrr_.” She sings back at him, in perfect rhythm with that cursed song.

_Stars-fuckin’-dammit._ “If ya don’ stop that fuckin’ racket right now, so help me…”

 

* * *

 

“Look, it’s one syllable. It’s even shorter and easier to say than ‘woman.’ Now, you’re just being ornery.”

Quill had always been a persistent little shit. Yondu can see where he gets it.

 

* * *

 

A lot can happen in five seconds.

In the Guardians line of business, it’s often the difference between life and death.

1… Peter blasts the control panel of a rogue ship.

2… He looks away to find Gamora’s eyes.

3… The floor buckles…

4… Then collapses. Gamora screams.

5… Peter falls.

White walls. Buzzing lights. The soft bustle of medical staff.

It’s all so familiar.

Mer and Peter have been here before, in another hospital in another world millions of miles away. Mer had spent her last months of life in a similar setting, fighting the cancer that ultimately took her life. The chemo treatments had taken her hair and sapped her strength. Her skin had been sallow and cheeks hollowed, like the shadow of death had already fallen across her face. Peter had visited her often then, had seen her decline from his vibrant mother into an unrecognizable shell. She hopes that when he does recall her, he remembers her from earlier, happier times than what she had been at the end.

Mer caresses his still face covered in bandages, imagining she feels skin and substance. She tries to avoid the wires connecting him to raspy-whistling machines. He had been so young back when she was the one on the hospital bed. He still had a touch of baby fat even then. She remembers lifting fingers and touching paper-thin skin to his small tear-stricken face, trying to reassure him that everything would be okay in a voice that was too hoarse to be her own. Now that she is the one at his bedside… What had he seen and felt back then, when he looked at her in a similar state?

“Don’t you start fussin’, Woman. Quill’ll be fine. It’s goin’ to be okay.” Yondu doesn’t want to be here. He looks uncomfortable as Mer begins to choke and cry.

“Don’t you start fussing, Mer.” She says through tears, without even thinking about it. It’s automatic now.

He stands apart from her, awkwardly patting and rubbing her back between her shoulders.

 “Right. Right, It’s goin’ to be okay… Mer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yondu doesn’t know what to do with displays of emotion when he can’t just cuff the other person on the back of the head.


	7. Whistle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu can't sing.

Mer was present enough in Peter’s early life on the Eclector to know he played her first mixtape on repeat to within an inch of its life, usually listening through his headphones and very _very_ occasionally on the ship’s intercom, if he was feeling especially suicidal. Perhaps it’s because she thinks Yondu cared so little that she’s surprised to find he knows all Peter’s songs by heart. He can’t sing. He has the clumsy, husky voice of a 3-pack-a-day smoker who got stabbed in the throat. But he can whistle along to all of them. It amuses her so much that while waiting at a space dock one day, she shares her headphones with him to teach him how to whistle “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” and sings along in duet. Yondu humors her because what the hell else is he going to do. It has virtually nothing to do with the fact that he misses Quill’s annoying obsession with Terran music, or so he tells himself.

“How do you do that?” Mer asks Yondu.

“Do what?”

“Whistle. I’ve never been able to whistle no matter how hard I try.”

“I don’ know, Mer. Put yer lips together and blow.” It has always been second nature to him. Mer might as well be asking him how to breathe.

“That doesn’t work.”

“Maybe yer mouth’s just not cut out for it,” Yondu muses. He’s no expert in Terran biology. He figures that maybe they’re close enough to Xandarians, except their blood is a different color. He’s not sure if that has any bearing on whistling ability, but Kraglin manages just fine.

“I’m not defective,” Mer deadpans.

“Try this.” Yondu cups his hands together and blows through them, making a strange clear twang of a whistle. It’s useless in battle (got to keep both hands free), but maybe it will shut her up. If her mouth can’t make the right shape, her hands ought to.

She struggles with making the necessary air-tight seal, so Yondu molds his calloused hands around her own to show her. Her skin is soft and smooth, and the textural contrast does something to his stomach. Drops the bottom out and maybe makes him a little nauseous. He lets go, and she manages a clean, bright whistle.


	8. Why Can't We Be Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu knows they can't be death-proximity associates anymore. Mer strongly disagrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that are Stateside, Happy Thanksgiving, and for my mother who will never read this, Happy Birthday. The next update after this one will likely be on Sunday because I'm going to call my mother, eat some turkey and braised beef tendons, and take my cat to the vet. You know, some IRL adult-level shit. Until then, stay safe, especially you Black Friday shoppers.

Yondu and Mer sit on the black-sand beaches of some far-flung planet, watching a sulking Groot try (and fail) to seduce something that looks like a Terran mangrove tree. The tree, being of a non-sentient variety, is clearly unimpressed. Mer kicks off her shoes and buries her toes in the sand. Terra has a lot of water, but Yondu gathers that where she’s from (“Mis-er-y”), they don’t have too many beaches.

Yondu regards her. At best, he’s always had a tenuous grasp on how to relate to other people, especially women. Most of his past sexual “relationships” with them were transient and transactional when they occurred, which was usually when Kraglin was pissed at him and unwilling to share his bed. The relationships that stuck for any length of time, the platonic ones like Aleta Ogord, were based on wariness and something approaching mutual respect. In a fight, he honestly wasn’t sure who would win. Probably Aleta. If not, Stakar would definitely be there to finish him off. Mer was different. She was no whore nor could she best him in a fight, not that he would try.

Yondu affects a nonchalant tone, “Wriggling yer toes like that is making me homesick.”

“Come again?” She asks.

“They remind me of the maggots in m’black bread back on the Eclector,” he says with a straight face.

She tosses a shoe at his head, and he knocks it out of the air. However, he doesn’t expect her to throw the second in its wake. It finds its mark. He’s disappointed with himself. Now that nothing can kill him, he’s getting slow.

“At least I don’t look like a bad crossover episode between the Smurfs and Mad Max.” She says with no small measure of mirth, suppressing her giggles.

“What you call me?” She’s spouting a bunch of nonsense, like Quill used to do. He doesn’t understand a word she’s saying, but the way she says it, Yondu doesn’t think it’s a compliment.

“Nothing, Papa Smurf,” She’s not even trying to stifle her peals of laughter anymore.

Just because he won’t fight her with his fists, doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy their verbal sparring. He finds the “Mis-er-y nice” thing she’s got to be kind of cute in a way. He likes cute sometimes. He used to collect it when he was alive. But he’s hoping one day, he’ll get her to swear. Maybe that’ll dirty her up a bit and make him feel a little better about their comfortable familiarity.

He’s not stupid. He knows what it looks like, or what it would look like if anybody living could see them. They make an unlikely pair, the scowling Centaurian in red leathers and the sassy Terran in a sundress. Yondu is uncomfortably aware that she’s too good to associate with the likes of him. She’s soft, but in a good way. Full of song, laughter, and sunshine. He’s rough, scarred, gritty… And if he’s not careful, he’ll break her.

Then, Quill will never forgive him.

 

* * *

 

Yondu is avoiding her again, except this time, Mer has no idea why. When she finds him again, he’s in some dark corner of the Quadrant. He’s phasing through one of the vents that served as one of Peter’s hiding places when he was still a small, skinny kid avoiding the stew pot.

“Hey, what are you doing back here? You got nostalgic for the old days or something?” She asks Yondu.

No response. He’s pointedly not looking at her, like he did in the early days of their acquaintanceship.

She tries again, “You know, when he was small, Peter used to come here all the time when he was scared – “

“I ain’t no coward.”

“Right…”

“Just gettin’ a little tired of you is all. Just came here for some peace an’ quiet. Can’t even have two minutes to m’self. Yer always yappin’.”

_Where did that come from?_ “So, you’re saying…” Mer can’t believe this phrase is coming out of her mouth to _Yondu_ of all people. “You need space?”

She’s staring at him now, large doe eyes big as saucers. This is precisely why he didn’t want to be around her anymore. He’s too irresistible for his own good. He has to let her down easy.

“Look Mer, I ain’t a good man. I don’ know how t’be, and somewhere down the line, I don’t ‘xactly know how, I’m goin’ to fuck it up. I always do. Quill… well, he’s real soft on ya, an’ he’s the closest thing I have to a legacy. If I hurt ya… let’s just say the boy can hold a grudge, ‘specially where yer concerned.”

_Did he just…?_ She would laugh if the look on his face wasn’t so serious. Mer sighs. She was really hoping to avoid this. It’s not a pleasant story, and it was supposed to stay private. But, if Yondu Udonta is going to be honest for once, she supposes she can be, too.

“Did you know… Celestials pass through here, too?” She begins tentatively. Yondu quirks an interested eyebrow. That means…

“It’s rare, being immortal and all, but shortly before you arrived, Ego was here. He… he tried to stay. He was all apologies and declarations of love. He called me his Riverlily and looked at me with those sad blue eyes full of regret… It’s the same look he gave me that last time on Earth… it was designed to soften me, get under my skin, break me. But I knew better. What happened to me, what he tried to do to Peter… It was too much. I clawed that beautiful face, scratched him like a feral cat, and kneed him in the groin. I must have looked a sight, all red and screaming and spitting.” She’s frowning at the memory. “All that effort doesn’t do much here, damage-wise. I wanted to do more though.” She takes in a big breath, and looks away from him. “But then the howlers came, the broken souls of his children, I suppose, and he screamed then, and it felt…” It had felt good because justice was served; it had felt bad because it hadn’t changed anything, and it had felt sad because she _had_ loved him once – all at the same time.

Her eyes flicker back to Yondu again. “Anyways, Ego was no father. But you… you genuinely love Peter.”

Yondu looks horrified, like he wants to protest.

“Shush now, you can try to deny it, but it’s not going to work. Secret’s out. Point is if I haven’t already, I’m not going to break. I can handle myself, and just because I’m nice doesn’t mean I’m made of glass. So, stop being a sulking idiot and let’s go back to our son.”

Mer holds out her hand to him as if to help lead him back. Yondu just stares at it, then edges around to push past her, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t need any help, and he doesn’t need her to lead the way. When she falls into step beside him, he finds that he likes this unfamiliar feeling. It’s acceptance and belonging and family and love.

It feels like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think Peter’s overconfidence with the ladies is from Yondu. As for Mer, she’s not into his particular… charms, but hey, there’s no accounting for taste. FYI, for those who miss him, Kraglin returns next chapter.


	9. The L Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Kraglin get drunk in a bar. Mer gives Yondu some unsolicited advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said Sunday, but I have time to kill.

Early on, in the weeks that Yondu had avoided Mer the first time (or conveniently had other places to be because Yondu Udonta is not a coward), Peter took the Guardians and Kraglin out to some disreputable dive bar on a grimy off-world satellite. He vaguely remembered this bar. It was one of many frequented in his young adulthood with the Ravagers. Upon entry, Drax had loudly proclaimed the establishment to be exceedingly low-class and much too sordid for Mantis. So, when he ended up carrying a sleepy baby Groot back to the ship while dragging a passed out Rocket with him (small bodies do not have high alcohol tolerances), he escorted her back as well. Gamora, who has a very high tolerance for alcohol and a very low tolerance for groping, was supposedly in the powder room. Peter knew there was no powder room in this establishment, and she was really outside beating some handsy regular and his identical, slightly-blurry friend. Gamora could take care of herself, and it was only the two-ish guys, and she did have backup in the form of a slightly-blurry identical twin sister Peter had seen but had yet to meet… The point is Peter knows he doesn’t have that much time. Gamora had sort-of acknowledged their unspoken thing during Yondu’s funeral, and Pete simply didn’t know how he was going to develop it.

“Hey, Krag, *hicc*… Have ya ever been in love afore?” Pete slurs, head lolling a bit and shaky hands holding on the edge of the bar for support as his environment appears to sway. Now that Kraglin is sufficiently sloshed (unlike Peter who can hold his liquor and would be perfectly under control if this satellite wasn’t so swerve-y), maybe he’ll answer honestly.

 _Yes_. “Why yer askin’?”

_I was raised by emotionally-stunted space pirates where displays of sentiment were punished by beat downs, and as a result, I don’t know how to develop intimacy outside of examples from old Terran TV shows and have never had a relationship last longer than a few nights. Now, I’ve got this… thing with an emotionally-stunted space assassin, and I want to know how to move it forward, but everyone else I knew growing up, including my sort-of dad, is dead._

“No reason. Jus’ making conversation.” Even in a drunk state, Pete has that carefully-affected innocent look about him that makes Kraglin suspicious. Kraglin isn’t blind nor is he stupid. He had spent years with Yondu and had a lot of practice interpreting unsaid conversations with that blue asshole. He knew this was about Pete and his green woman. Gamora was almost as guarded as –

Kraglin supposes he could answer, just this once. Now that Yondu and most of his Ravager clan are gone, no one is going to fault him for showing sentiment… least of all, a drunk Peter Quill. He has experience in this area after all.

“Yeah, once.”

“What happened?”

“They died.”

“Oh.” Pete looks disappointed, as if he wanted a more enlightening story.

Kraglin sighs. It might be the booze or maybe the nostalgia of an old dive bar, but he’s feeling generous. “We had a thing goin’ for a while, but y’know bein’ a Ravager and all… no sentiment allowed. Had us some fun, but not even sure how they felt. I never said nothing and neither did they. I didn’ want to ruin what we got, and y’know… once you say it, it’s out. Always thought maybe some day… but now, it’s too late. And… I regret it, Petey. Not sayin’ nothing.”

Kraglin finishes his drink and motions the bartender for another. He looks at Pete with a sad, naked honesty only made possible through extreme inebriation. “I’mma only say this once. Don’t do any o’ that unspoken shit. Just tell her, at least once. She may roll her eyes. She may call you a fuckin’ idiot and cuff ya on the back o’ the head and throw you out o’ her room when yer in nothin’ but yer skinnies and yer dick’s hangin’ out.”

If Pete was more sober, he would wonder if they were both talking about the same Gamora.

Kraglin continues, “Fuck, she’s just as bad as… Well, she may not say it back or nothin’, but one of you’s gotta say it first, and it might as well be you,” Kraglin’s throat is dry so he takes another swig out of his fresh drink. “Because ya both know it’s never goin’ t’be her.”

Kraglin is hunched over the bar, steadying his alcohol-trembling fingers by clutching one hand around the glass and one on his knee. He’s looking down at the sticky surface of the bar top with unfocused eyes as if he’s seeing through it to another time and other possibilities where perhaps he took his own advice.

“Uh… thanks.” Pete looks away from him then, as if to give him some modicum of privacy for his thoughts.

“Don’ mention it, Pete. Seriously. Don’t.”

Gamora comes in then and graces the seat on the other side of Peter. Peter leans over to her as if he wants to say something, but he miscalculates, and his face ends up landing in her chest. Gamora swats him so hard, he flops back off his stool and is knocked out cold on the floor. Shaking her head, she goes to pick his sorry ass off the floor. “Okay, I think it’s time we return to the ship. Kraglin, a hand?”

Kraglin sighs, finishes his drink, and steps off his stool. They prop Peter’s limp heavy body up between them and carry him off into the night. Kid will have one hell of a hangover in the morning.

 

* * *

 

At the time, Mer had no idea who Kraglin was talking about. Now she knows better. Observing Yondu studiously not watch Kraglin (while surreptitiously doing just that) as the poor sap tries and fails to guide the arrow, Mer feels that perhaps they’ve developed enough of a friendship for her to say something about an issue that generally would be none of her business.

“Want my advice?” She cocks her head towards Kraglin as his whistle shakily raises the trembling Yaka arrow.

“Not really.”

 _Too bad._ “When Kraglin gets here, you should tell him how you feel.”

“When he gits here, I’m goin’ t’punch him straight in his fuckin’ gob,” Yondu counters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate summary: Kraglin plays the pronoun game.


	10. Somebody That I Used to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin moves on. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you may have noticed I added a chapter to the total count. I wrote an end-credits scene. I hope you enjoy it.

The first time it happens, over two years after Yondu’s death, Kraglin is at another dive bar in one of the outer worlds. A scruffy bald Xandarian with a gap-toothed grin and confident swagger sits next to him and orders two of the drink Kraglin is nursing, sliding one his way. Kraglin looks at the drink then up at the man. He’s not blue and he has far more body hair than he prefers, but there’s something about the way he’s leering at Kraglin that’s familiar. Kraglin finishes the drink he has in his hand in one swig, then picks up the new one. The other man smiles and clinks his glass against Kraglin’s. Later, they drunkenly stumble out onto the street and into a seedy Rent-by-the-Hour hotel room.

“I’m sorry…” Mer starts to say. It’s always difficult when someone you still love moves on, harder still when you have no choice but to watch it happen.

“Don’t be. Me and Kraglin weren’t never like that.” Yondu responds. Mer stares at him and struggles to comprehend what he’s saying, to reconcile his words with what she has witnessed over the past couple years. Does he really think she’s _that_ stupid?

“I know it’s none of my business,” she ignores his confirmation of “It ain’t” and continues, “but I’ve seen how you look at him…”

“Ain’t what I meant. We just don’ get jealous is all.” Kraglin and he were never completely monogamous. There had been others for both of them throughout the years, but they had always fallen back together, time and again.

Mer, having a different upbringing and more conventional (to Terrans) expectations of love, is a bit uncertain, but if Yondu is truly fine with this turn of events, who is she to say otherwise. “Okay, but if you ever want to talk about it…”

“I don’t. Ain’t goin’ to last anyhow.” He replies.

Yondu is proven right when Kraglin never sees that man again. It’s the same with the next one and the next. At most, they last a week, maybe two. However, three years later, a blue one-night stand sticks around a little longer than Yondu is entirely comfortable with.

 

* * *

 

“So, I just need t’stop here for a spell to get somethin’ in m’fin adjusted. Stay on the ship.”

Kraglin is nervous when he hails the Quadrant to dock. He’s been gone for months and isn’t sure what the Guardians will make of his new addition if he’s seen. He needs to make the rules about this pit-stop very _very_ explicit, so there is no misunderstanding.

“What? I’m not good enough to meet your friends, Kraglin?” Arloc might be a little hurt, but he’s mostly offended. Kraglin doesn’t talk much about his past, but from the things he lets slip, the Guardians of the Galaxy are his oldest surviving friends.

Kraglin lands his M-ship and sighs. “No. S’not that,” He starts to object. “Look, just stay ‘ere. I won’t be long. There’s some Beasties in the fridge if’n ya git hungry.”

With that Kraglin exits the craft, dropping to the dock.

“Hey Kraglin, long time no see!” Pete welcomes him. Kraglin thumps his flame badge twice in greeting. Pete returns the gesture. Some habits die hard.

“Yeah, we thought you were dead,” Rocket adds.

Kraglin rolls his eyes. He can always count on Rocket for blunt honesty. “This s’not actually a social visit. The fin’s actin’ up. Durin’ my last job, the arrow’s veerin’ a little to the left, and I almost got skewered by my mark. I was wonderin’ if ya could maybe adju…” Kraglin trails off.

Rocket and Peter aren’t paying attention. They are focused on something behind him. Pete has an unreadable expression while Rocket simply asks, “Are you going to introduce your blue friend here?”

_Fuckin’ A. He had ONE job._

 

* * *

 

“There we were surrounded by Skrull mercenaries, and Kraglin here whistles the arrow through the whole lot of ‘em. Ten men dead before the first one even drops!” Arloc regales the assembled Guardians with tales of Kraglin and his most recent jobs. Mantis’s large baby eyes widen.

Pete still hasn’t said anything. He’s looking at Arloc, his head cocked to the side like he’s trying to figure something out.

“So… How did you two meet?” Gamora asks, indicating Arloc and Kraglin.

“Oh, that’s actually a real sweet story, Darlin’. See…” Arloc begins. Kraglin sits silently with his eyes closed and hand draped over his face, quietly seething in anger. _How dare he? How fuckin’ dare he?_ He and Arloc are going to have to have a long talk about boundaries later. “…then we got shit-faced and ended up fucking in the men’s bathroom.” If Arloc is still breathing by the end of the day, that is.

Kraglin has had enough. He stands abruptly, mumbles something about needing to take a shit, and walks out towards the Bridge. He needs to clear his head before he whistles an arrow through the lot of them. Looking outside the large round window of the Quadrant, it’s like returning home. He can almost imagine Yondu lounging spread-legged in the Captain’s Chair, eyeing him with that familiar smirk showing just a touch of silvered tooth. He hears Pete’s heavy footsteps approaching from behind. Kraglin doesn’t turn around. Maybe if he doesn’t acknowledge him…

“Arloc seems… nice,” Pete starts. Well, it was worth a shot.

“He’s a stars-damned idiot, who can’t follow simple direction, is what he is,” Kraglin fumes.

“Right… right. Anyways, I couldn’t help but notice he’s a man.” That came out wrong.

“That a problem, Pete?”

“No, no. It’s great. More than great really,” Pete backtracks and overcompensates clumsily. He’s not good at this. “But I always thought you were into women. Just surprised is all.” Pete looks up and scratches the back of his head. He’s shifting on his feet. He used to do that as a kid when he really wanted to ask something but was uncomfortable with the subject.

“Also, he sort of looks like –”

“Don’t ya fuckin’ say it,” Kraglin warns, spinning around to face him.

“Yondu.”

Kraglin crosses his arms and glares at Pete. No point in denying it now. “What about it?”

“You and Yondu were _together_ -together.” So many puzzle pieces from his childhood are locking into place, all turning on the fact that one of the core assumptions of his childhood is false. He can’t believe he’s never seen it before. The late night meetings, the easy comradery and complete trust between the two, and finally, the way Yondu had spared Kraglin alone amongst all the mutineers. He thought they were best friends, brothers in arms closer than two Ravagers ought to have been, but it had been something even deeper.

“It didn’ matter, at least not to him. He chose to die, Pete. He chose to save you. He always chose you.” And there it is. The naked truth. Kraglin is not looking at him anymore. He’s lightly grasping one of the Nav controls at his old station, caressing the metal like he’s in another world… or another time.

Pete doesn’t know what to say about that, so he retreats to emotionally safe territory. “So, this Arloc guy. He treats you well? You’re happy with him?”

“Yeah, treats me real sweet.” _Almost too sweet._

Sometimes, Kraglin wishes Arloc would fight back more. He wants metal teeth on his neck, chipped claws carving possessive blood-blue ribbons into his back, and the threat of a glowing arrow through his head. Kraglin knows he shouldn’t. He knows it’s not healthy, and it’s all sorts of fucked up. Then again, Kraglin never claimed to be well-adjusted.

 

* * *

 

“So, Kraglin and that guy. Been six months?” Yondu begins. They stay with Arloc and the others, even after Kraglin left and Peter followed. He’s glaring at Arloc like he wants to whistle. He’s going to regret bringing this up. Yondu knows he’s dead, and Kraglin isn’t. He tells himself he’s not jealous. He doesn’t want Kraglin to be alone for the rest of his life, yet –

“Seven next week,” Mer states. Ah. So, she has noticed.

“Ya don’t think…” Yondu doesn’t know how to phrase the question. Emotional honesty has never been his forte, and he can’t very well avoid it the regular way via denial, drinking, and punching people/things. Well, he can, but it’s not going to change the situation, and it’s going to look real silly when his volleys don’t connect.

“He hasn’t forgotten you.” Mer sees the way Kraglin still palms his old worn Ravager flame patch and the distant misty look he gets when he looks at the back of Arloc’s blue head.

Yondu snorts. Even after all this time, after everything that has happened, she’s still that silly idealist from Missouri, brainwashed by all those damned Terran love songs of which she and Quill are so fond. Well, the galaxy doesn’t work like that, sweetheart. It’s a hard, cold place full of hard, cold truths; one of them being that Kraglin has moved on and has a new blue squeeze, someone that doesn’t snap and push him away as much as Yondu did… someone willing to acknowledge their “thing” as a real relationship.

He snarls, “I don’t know why I’m even askin’ you. Ya thought _Ego_ loved you.”

Maybe a few years ago, the barbed insult would have stung and Mer would have stomped off to cry, but she’s been around Yondu too long for that. She rolls her eyes instead.

“Okay; first off: _Ouch_. Second, he still loves you, you crabby bastard. He probably always will, though Lord knows _why_ or _what_ he sees in you.”

Arloc and Kraglin last another three months before Arloc asks for more commitment and Kraglin rebuffs him. He simply can’t give him that, so their relationship ends. Yondu doesn’t believe Mer is right, per se. Kraglin might just not be one for long-term relationships, like Yondu himself in life. Perhaps that’s why they lasted as long as they did. Even if she is correct in her analysis of Kraglin’s feelings… Yondu supposes a stopped clock is right twice a day. His stance on the general nature of the universe remains intact and unchanged.

Still, he feels as if he has let out a breath he did not know he was holding in.


	11. Come Away With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes, and the Guardians die.

One by one, the old Guardians age and pass into the afterlife.

Rocket is the first to go, but that is not surprising. Raccoons, even genetically-modified ones, don’t have particularly long lifespans. Groot cries fat sappy tears when he finds him still and stiff, curled up against a coil reactor he had been working on. Absent his big abrasive personality, Rocket is diminished, seeming much smaller in death than he had been in life.

A decade passes before Drax dies next in battle. Shouting and swinging his twin swords, he had what he would term a marvelous death, delivering him to the stoic arms of Hovat and Kamaria.

Death comes next for Gamora. She had been so beautiful, even as she fell, her greying hair whipping in the wind. Peter cried for months, and not even their children could console him. Kraglin stayed a bit after that one. He claimed his ship needed an upgrade, but when he overstayed that and the excuses got ever thinner, Pete knew he was trying to offer whatever moral support he was capable of providing. He quietly listened to him weep and blather on about Gamora without comment or condemnation of the younger man’s softness. He simply said, “You’ll always love her, Petey, but this pain, it’ll dull in time. It’s an open wound now, but it will heal and scar.” Belatedly, Peter recalls that Kraglin had once loved – and perhaps still loved – a certain blue someone as well.

When it’s Peter’s time…

Peter wakes. His head feels full of cotton, and his vision is fuzzy and slow to come back into focus. He wipes his face. That had been a close one. Huh, his hand had looked much more wrinkled a second ago. Vision must still be blurry.

“That was a good shot, son. Too bad the other one got the drop on ya. Don’t worry, yer crew won. The kid made it real slow and painful fer the other guy, though. Ya know, I always liked her. Yer girl’s got grit; I’ll give ya that. Must have gotten it from her ma.”

Peter knows that voice. It’s one of those dreams again, where he’s a young man again under the Ravager Flame.

“Yondu?” He’s rubbing his eyes. These dreams always made him a little sad and nostalgic. He knows life wasn’t great back then, but everything always looks so rosy in hindsight.

Yondu starts up again. He practiced. “Alrigh’. This is the fourth time we’ve gone through this with one o’ you assholes, so short version. Yer dead. The afterlife is waitin’.”

_That’s new._ Peter turns to face him and freezes when he sees Mer standing next to him, her eyes glassy with tears.

“…Mom?” He whispers. Mer rushes to embrace him. She had visualized this moment time and again. What she would say and how Peter would react. Reimagined and re-edited the scene in her mind for years. However, now that it’s here, she finds she can’t remember what she wanted to say or the sentiments she wanted to convey. Her throat chokes up, and words are futile. So, she holds him with healthy strength, like she hasn’t done since he was a small boy before she got too sick to leave bed. It’s enough to make Peter crumble.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. You were afraid, and all you wanted me to do was hold your hand, and I never did it because I was afraid, too. I was afraid if I said goodbye that would be the end, but it was still the end, and I never got to say goodbye, and I regret it all the time,” Peter babbles and cries like he hasn’t in years. It had been a lifetime since he last saw her, and the details in his memory had faded to the point where he found it hard to recall the exact curve of her smile, shape of her nose, the feel of her slim arms. But here she is now in high definition. This must be real. He must have died.

His mother is shushing him now, patting his back, telling him it’s okay and she understands. He’s a little boy again in a sterile hospital room smelling of death and antiseptic. His mother reaches out for him, begging him to hold her hand with her dying breath – How long had she been here, alone? Waiting for him?

Well, not exactly alone.

Yondu claps him on the back and smiles a big toothy grin. He looks the same but younger than Peter remembers him being, or perhaps it’s Peter that just got old.

“And Yondu…” There’s so much he wants to say. _Thank you for raising me and for teaching me to fight and talk my way out of bad situations. Thank you for never giving up on me even when I turned my back on you, and you lost everything. All things considered, you were a pretty good dad. I’m sorry it took you dying for me to see it. Thank you for saving me and allowing me to live all those years with the Guardians and Gamora. You have grandchildren now, did you know that? I tried to live a good life, and I hope I made your sacrifice worth it._

It’s so hard to express these sentiments to Yondu without embarrassing the both of them. They have never had that kind of relationship, the kind where they actually talk and really say what they mean, but maybe if Peter can only find the right words…

“You weren’t terrible at it. Being my dad and all.” _Nailed it._

“Peter!” Mer thought she raised him a little better than that. “Yondu was – “

“S’Fine, Mer. Really. I know what he means,” Yondu says, and he does. If Peter went on about him like he did his mother, Yondu would have to clock him, and then Mer would make that constipated face again, the one that said she was disappointed with him.

“You’re on a first name basis with my mother?” Peter asks. Yondu was… is gay, right?

Yondu gives him a leer that says otherwise. Peter wants to smack that look off his face.

Before he can, Mer bats Yondu lightly on the shoulder. “Stop teasing him. You’re going to give him a heart attack.”

“He’s already dead,” Yondu points out. Peter breathes a sigh of relief. The thought of his mom and sort-of dad together in any capacity is… disturbing. He spares a glance at Yondu’s ugly mug. His mother has _standards_ after all.

“Dead,” Peter repeats. Wait, what was that other thing? The thing Yondu had said at the start. “Fourth time?” Peter asks, realization setting in. “So… Rocket, Drax, and… Gamora?”

“Greenie passed by here some time ago. She wanted t’be part o’ the welcoming party, but her family... they haven’ seen her in a long time, Quill, so no bitchin’ when ya git over there. Can’t be selfish all the time.” That’s rich coming from Yondu.

“Yer ma, she promised to meet ya here and lead ya back,” Yondu finishes. Mer had been excited to finally meet Gamora after so long. She had wished it was under better circumstances, all considering, but from what she had observed, Mer liked her. Though he didn’t like to admit it, Yondu had too.

“We should go, Peter,” Mer says, taking his hand to turn towards the light.

“Wait,” Peter turns to Yondu. “Hey, um, Yond… Dad. You want to come with us?”

His boy is looking at him with those smiling big blue eyes as he reaches out his hand to tentatively touch Yondu’s forearm. Yondu wants to follow his makeshift family into the light, where his crew and Ravager buddies wait. He clasps the hand that rests on his forearm, and nods his head a little in a way that Peter takes for acceptance.


	12. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kraglin dies, and he wakes alone.

Surprisingly, Kraglin lasts another eight standard years after Pete’s death, managing to outlive Mantis. Like a Cockroach, he’s the last one alive besides Groot. New Guardians cycle through so it’s not like the tree is alone. Kraglin supposes when you spring anew every few decades, you get used to losing friends here and there.

Kraglin’s blue arteries show purple through age-spotted thinned skin as he cups and warms his hands with his breath. It’s cold in this ship, and it’s making his joints ache. Maybe he’ll just close his eyes for a spell…

When Kraglin wakes, he’s young again but alone. He doesn’t know what else he expected.

“Hey asshole!” A familiar husky voice behind him breaks the silence. Kraglin turns towards it, receiving a mean right hook directly on his oversized nose. His head snaps to the side and he stumbles, recoiling in a habitual pain response. Being dead sure takes the sting out of injury, but Kraglin is new. Then, strong blue arms wrap around him awkwardly, pushing his face directly into a stiff leather-bound chest. Kraglin’s not too sure, but he thinks his assailant is embracing him. It’s not a common occurrence. When he pulls back and up, Kraglin looks down to see familiar red eyes tinged in mirth.

“Took ya long enough to git here, Kraglin. Can’t believe ya went out _in yer sleep_. Wait ‘til the boys hear!” _I missed you_ is what Yondu doesn’t say.

Kraglin opens his mouth then closes it again, like a dumb Barrugian fish. He’s speechless, and for a moment, Yondu wonders if he hit him a little too hard; maybe the whiplash loosed something in his skull. Sure, Kraglin had been implausibly old when he died (especially for a Ravager), but he shouldn’t be this fragile after death. But now, he’s getting that wet look in his eye, and his bottom lip has a slight tremor if you stare hard enough at it. He looks like he’s about to cry or maybe vomit. Yondu is not sure which one he would prefer at the moment.

“Sorry fer livin’, Cap’n.” The tips of his frown are forcibly upturned. He says it half-joking, half-serious. The survivor’s guilt is strong in this one.

Yondu frowns and cuffs him on the back of his head. “Ravagers don’t ‘pologize.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Kraglin is usually good at following orders, but it’s been a big day for him. Dying and all that. Yondu sighs and puts an arm around Kraglin’s bent shoulders. He tells himself he didn’t hear that last one, so maybe he’ll let it slide.

“Yer here.” Kraglin says, with wonder. He raises his right arm to scratch the back of his head, carefully looking away. “Pete should’a passed here ages ago, but you… you waited. For me?”

Yondu wants to deny it, but he takes in the other man’s drooping shoulders and the carefully-guarded, cautious hope in Kraglin’s countenance. So instead, he rolls his eyes as if it was obvious, as if Kraglin should know better. “Sure did.” Yondu confirms. “Wouldn’ leave without m’first mate.”

“After all I’ve done?” Kraglin doesn’t have to specify.

“Had a long time to think about it. Weren’t yer fault.”

“How can ya say that? I rejected you for months. I mutinied. If it weren’t for me…” Yondu abruptly grabs Kraglin’s chin between his fingers and places a clumsy kiss on his mouth. When he breaks it, Kraglin has lost the rest of his sentence.

“…It still would’a happened sooner or later. Only you would’a been out the airlock before me, and Ego would’a kept Quill or the fool boy would’a died on that fuckin’ planet.” Yondu finishes. The arm around Kraglin’s shoulders crooks him closer, bringing his head down a bit and closer to Yondu. If in the execution of this motion, Yondu’s hand accidentally grazes Kraglin’s face to wipe away a traitorous tear on his far cheek, neither one says anything about it.

_When Kraglin gets here, you should tell him how you feel._

They’re alone, and he’s waited this long, so maybe just this once… “Y’know I love ya, right?” Yondu says in what he hopes is an off-handed manner, but comes off a smidge vulnerable. He’s speaking to Kraglin at his side, but he’s looking ahead of him into the distance. It’s hard enough to say the words without having to look the other man in the eye. Kraglin freezes and looks at him like he’s grown three heads. Yondu thinks perhaps he’s made a mistake. Perhaps the unspoken should have remained so. He feels stupid and a little foolish. _Dammit, Mer._ When he sees her again, he’s going to –

“Love you too, Cap’n.” Kraglin grins then, a genuine, unguarded smile Yondu hasn’t seen in a long time.

Yondu has reached his sentimentality quota for the day. “Now, are ya just goin’ ta stand there all day, gapin’ at me like a babe? They should be findin’ yer body soon, and those colors. My, they sure are purty. So, come along now; crew’s waitin’.”

With that, Yondu smiles, pushes Kraglin forward a bit, and together they walk towards the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the end of the fic, but if you want, you can stay for the after-credits scene.


	13. After-Credits Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mer always assumes the best in people.

“How thoughtful. Thank you, Mer. Yer always so sweet t’ me.” Yondu’s voice is raspy-smooth as Mer hands him a datastick with yet another song. He grins broadly as his fingers overextend the offering and caress her own momentarily. Mer doesn’t notice, but her son does. Peter is trying to be pleasant, but his plastered-on smile twitches, like he wants to punch Yondu but also doesn’t want to upset his mother.

_They’re both idiots_ , Kraglin thinks, shaking his head. He can hear Cap’n from clear across the bridge. When Mer visits alone, Cap’n acts like his normal self, but when Pete is around, he likes to lay it on extra thick, just to mess with the kid.

“I hope you like it. It’s one of my favorites,” Mer replies brightly. Yondu always made an effort to be so nice to her around Peter. It was almost like he was trying to forge a stronger bond with their son. It warmed her heart.

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Yondu purrs. He spares a glance at Peter and notes the satisfying thrum of a pulsing vein in his forehead. His boy always made the best expressions during these social visits.

“Oh, Rocket wanted me to give something to Kraglin. So, please excuse me for a moment.” With that, Mer steps away and crosses over to Kraglin’s location.

Tullk whistles low. “Cap’n, you sly _mother_ fucker– “

Peter draws back his fist and plants a hard right hook across Tullk’s face. His breath is ragged with misdirected fury.

“Peter!” Mer exclaims.

Yondu just laughs. _Too Easy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaand that’s a wrap, people! I want to thank everyone who commented, kudo-ed, bookmarked, and subscribed to this fic. If you liked it and even if you didn’t but somehow made it to the end (masochist), please leave a comment letting me know. I want to hear that you loved it, that you hated it, that I should go fuck myself for killing off everyone and leaving Groot by his lonesome. Basically, down for anything you can dish out. So, hit that button after the break, and let me know that I should have shipped Meredith and Kraglin just to mess with Yondu.


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